


a moment come to life

by cori_the_bloody



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, One Shot, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:13:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25957294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cori_the_bloody/pseuds/cori_the_bloody
Summary: It’s a full dress rehearsal.”“I’d kind of gathered that, yeah.”“Stay!” she says. “Watch!”
Relationships: Rebecca Bunch/Nathaniel Plimpton
Comments: 12
Kudos: 29
Collections: Rethaniel Appreciation Week





	a moment come to life

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, Bethany, for reading this over!
> 
> This is for Rethaniel Appreciation Week 2020, day one - musical.

Rebecca’s kneeling on a fold-down auditorium chair, leaning over the back of it with a notebook held aloft, when Nathaniel spots her.

“No, no, no,” she’s saying. “The red light should be cue twenty-eight.”

“Then what’s cue thirty-two?” the bearded man dressed in all black she’s talking to asks.

“That’s the sunshine-through-the-trees light.”

The man draws out a long note of understanding, and then starts to walk up the aisle—presumably headed to the booth in the back of the theater—muttering “ _Red twenty-eight, sunshine thirty-two,_ ” to himself.

“Idiot,” Rebecca says to herself, so intent on crossing something out in her notebook that she doesn’t notice Nathaniel’s approach.

“So it’s your turn to boss around incompetent cronies,” he says. “I believe this is called comeuppance.”

Her head snaps up. “Nathaniel?”

He laughs—and it’s not nervous, it’s _not_ —and thrusts the bouquet of flowers he’s brought at her.

She scrambles out of her seat. “Oh, my god! Nathaniel! What are you doing here?”

A second later, she’s squeezing him about his waist so hard, he can feel her chin excavating a hole through his sternum.

He tries to hide his smile against the top of her head, but he knows she can feel it, if her giggle is any indication. He doesn’t even know why he bothers fighting it at this point. Habit, maybe.

“What are the flowers for?” she asks when she pulls back.

“You.”

“Okay,” she says, accepting the bouquet and shoving her face into it so the rest of her question is more directed at the roses than him. “But why?”

“I won’t be here to give you any on opening night.”

She pulls up, her eyebrows high on her forehead. “Yeah. I didn’t even know you were in town now.” She cocks her head at him. “Why are you in town now?”

“My contract with the Sanctuary is up next month, and I—”

She’s already lit up and hitting him on the arm, but before he can confirm what she’s clearly anticipating to be true, a mousy girl in stage makeup and a flouncy white shirt approaches them.

She clears her throat. “Ms. Bunch?”

“What’s up, Maddie?” Rebecca asks without taking her shimmering eyes off Nathaniel.

“We can’t get into the props closet.”

“That’s because the bayonets are in there,” Rebecca says.

“Yeah, and Chris and I wanna practice the dance before curtain.”

“Okay,” Rebecca says, attention drifting away from him as she pulls out her phone. “Let me find out where Mr. Chan is…”

The girl—Maddie—looks Nathaniel up and down as Rebecca paces up the aisle, phone pressed to her ear.

“Are you Ms. Bunch’s boyfriend?”

“That’s a loaded question, kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” the girl says, crossing her arms.

“You’re, like, one-eighth my size,” he says. “You’re a kid.”

“If that’s how you measure it, does that make Ms. Bunch a kid, too?”

Nathaniel snorts despite himself. “Yes.”

Maddie giggles.

“Mr. Chan is in the parking lot,” Rebecca says, walking back over to them.

“Does he—”

“He has the key,” Rebecca says, grinning. “You can meet him backstage.”

Maddie takes off running without another word.

“Josh is in this?” Nathaniel can’t help asking.

“He’s the choreographer!” Rebecca says brightly. And then, “You were saying something about moving back.”

“I hadn’t gotten to that part yet, actually.”

“But you were going to?”

His chest feels like it’s being consumed by the sun at how hopeful she sounds.

“I was,” he confirms. “Just sorted out my new lease earlier today.”

“Oh, my god!” Rebecca says, hitting him on the arm again. “Nathaniel! That’s exciting! Are you excited?”

He smiles. “I am, actually. I’ve missed this place.”

“It’s missed you,” she says, batting her eyes at him.

He feels himself swaying into her. “I almost don’t want to go back. Especially since I’m going to miss your debut as a playwright.”

She opens her mouth to say something, but her phone chiming cuts her off. She pulls it back out.

“Oh, ten minutes to curtain,” she says. “I gotta go make sure everyone’s ready to go.”

“I’ll let you go, then,” he says, taking a step back.

Her hand shoots out, grips his arm hard enough to make him wince. “No, wait. It’s a full dress rehearsal.”

“I’d kind of gathered that, yeah.”

“Stay!” she says. “Watch!”

“You want me to?”

She pretends to consider it. “Do you promise to be honest about what you see?”

He pretends like he might not cave, even though they both know he will.

She laughs as she watches him, and that does him in.

“I think I could manage that, yeah.”

“Then yes,” she says. “I really, really want you to.”

He hums, reaching out to push a chunk of hair that’s fallen out of her haphazard ponytail behind her ear—habit and all.

“Okay, then,” he says. “I’ll stay.”

###

Nathaniel waits in his seat in the middle of the theater, inadvisable as it is with his early morning flight looming, as Rebecca and Josh and the assistant director—some MFA student from UCLA—give their notes to the cast and crew. He waits through the flurry of de-costuming and resetting the stage for the next rehearsal. He waits while Rebecca chats with parents and hugs Josh goodbye.

He waits until finally, finally, she collapses into the seat next to him with a sigh that echoes through the empty theater.

“I’m gonna take a month-long nap after closing night,” Rebecca says, letting her head fall back and her arms flop at her sides. “Remind me why I do this again.”

“Because it suits you,” he says automatically.

She shakes her head, a fond-yet-disbelieving smile on her lips.

“I’m serious,” he says. “This suits you.”

“ _This_ ,” she says back. “That’s such a placeholder word. And I would know, because I am a writer now.”

“This,” he repeats indulgently. “Your director’s notebook, being the most captivating thing on the stage even when you’re surrounded by people in ridiculous costumes and too much makeup. Storytelling. This whole building. _This_.”

She lifts her head to blink at him, her expression unreadable for an excruciating moment. Then she smiles, wide and toothy.

“You know, sometimes you speak, and I’m totally reminded of why I was seduced by storybook romance at such a young age.”

He feels his eyebrows tick up. “Seduced, huh?”

“Month-long nap,” she reminds him.

He laughs.

She sits up straighter in her seat all of a sudden, grabbing hold of his hand. “So,” she says, eyes boring into his. “What did you think?”

He nods. “It reminded me of _Twelfth Night_.”

“Just because of the ‘dressing as a guy’ thing?” she asks.

He shrugs. “Well…yes.”

She grunts, clearly unimpressed with the feedback. “What else?”

“I liked when Johnathan died.”

Rebecca snorts. “I may have borrowed traits heavily from George, Tim, and Jim while writing Johnathan.”

“Well, then. The world continues to make sense.”

She squeezes his hand. “Anything else?”

He squeezes back. “I mean, I wouldn’t call it a masterpiece or anything.”

“Okay,” she says, eyebrows raised.

He tugs his hand free of hers so he can rub at the back of his neck. “But I saw you in a lot of the characters. Heard your voice. And…” He trails off for a moment, sucking in a deep breath before continuing. “I love you. So it was easy to love them.”

He can’t look at her after it’s out in the open. He can’t regret what he’s said, either, because it’s true, but he’s never quite gotten used to the vertigo he gets every time he offers his heart up to Rebecca Bunch.

“Nathaniel…” she says.

And he has to look then because her voice sounds thick and goopy and, sure enough, there are tears welling in her eyes.

“You mean it?” she asks.

“Of course,” he says.

She throws her arms around his neck, and he can’t really hug her back with the armrest in his way, so he has to settle for rubbing his hand between her shoulder blades.

“Thank you,” she says when she eventually pulls away.

“You’re welcome.”

She rubs at her eyes as she stands. “What time is your flight tomorrow?”

“Four-thirty,” he says.

“In the morning?” She gawks. “Dude, why didn’t you say something sooner?”

He shrugs. “I’ll be fine.”

She heads down one of the other aisles until she finds her bag. “Yeah, well, I’m more worried about the poor asshole whose seat ends up next to yours. And security. And the flight attendants.”

“Ha-ha,” he says flatly.

She grins at him as she leads him out into the lobby. “A month you said?”

He nods. “I did.”

“Great! You’ll be getting back just in time for me to wake up from my nap.”

“I take that to mean you’ll be refreshed and ready to be seduced.”

He means it as a joke, but she waggles her eyebrows at him. “Maybe I will.”

###

Nathaniel feels like his brain is at war with his eyes when he wakes up after only a few hours of sleep.

Still, he wouldn’t trade the night. Not even for a month of sleep.


End file.
